Today is the last day of 2024 – New Year’s Eve. It’s been a second very good year for investment markets and we’ll start seeing tomorrow if we are going to get a “three-peat” performance in 2025. Here are some of the predictions I’ve seen that will impact retiree finances in the New Year … +11.5% – S&P 500 Growth (7-14%) +2.5% – USA GDP … Continue reading New Year’s Predictions
On a long road trip this weekend, my son, and I listened to the latest Apple developers conference presentation. CEO Tim Cook and his staff introduced new laptops, new software, and their new AR headset. It was all very impressive, and made me think about how far computing technology and software have come since I bought my first Apple product in 1984. I have my … Continue reading Who Will Organize Our Digital Life?
I spent the evening of New Year’s Day (observed) tallying up the ugliness of our 2022 year-end financial performance. The returns weren’t great. Not at all. It looks like our retirement savings took a huge dive. Our retirement nest egg fell a whopping -16.9%. That’s much worse than I had imagined. Our losses were all centered in the plunge in our equities. The S&P 500 … Continue reading A Bad Year, A Good Place …
It’s been a busy November, but I’ve never been so organized heading into the holidays. I like to load up the month with all of the ‘work’ of the holidays so that I can just goof-off and enjoy ourselves between now and New Year’s. My approach this year was inspired by something I saw used at our metro zoo. I’ve been involved with the zoo … Continue reading Pre-Holiday Organization
We had quite the “to-do” list when we got back to Minnesota from our Winter Summerland adventures in Florida last month. We don’t usually keep a list, but we had an unusual number of important things to get done. We got our bills paid (a few a bit late), helped our son move into the new townhouse, helped my father-in-law with estate documents, decluttered/organized a … Continue reading To-Do’s and Taxes
We got back from Florida last week and instead of watching March Madness NCAA Basketball, we are up to our eyeballs in March Madness … Paperwork. It turns out that bills, taxes, and legal work doesn’t go away when you are goofing off in the Sunshine State. All of that paperwork is waiting for you when you get home! We had a large – 24” … Continue reading March Madness … Paperwork
Every few months, my wife will have me transfer money into our main ‘household’ checking account. It’s the account that groceries, utilities, and everyday expenses get paid out of, so it’s always running dry. I have a few accounts to pull $$$ from, including our one big money market savings account. Our smaller accounts have gotten so small over our first five years of retirement … Continue reading Sweep Up Loose Accounts
